Amazon Unlimited – Good or Bad?

Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited? Good or Bad?

What is it?

Kindle Unlimited allows customers to read ‘unlimited’ ebooks with their kindle device or kindle app with a monthly subscription. The reader is allowed to have a limited number of ebooks simultaneously on the kindle device and the program is currently only open to customers in the US for a monthly fee of US$9.99.

What does this mean for an author?

An author is entitled to royalties as soon as the ebook has been read (at least 10% of the pages have to be opened by the reader). Royalty calculations are based on Amazon’s KDP Payout Fund (e.g. September 2014 = $3 Million) divided by the total number of ebooks read. For example, if the monthly global fund amount is $3,000,000, all participating KDP titles were read 3,000,000 times, and customers read your book 10 times, you will earn 0.00033% (10/3,000,000 = 0.00033%), or $9.99 for that month. The more books are downloaded and read, the lower your share will get.

What is the catch?

In one simple word – exclusivity

You would need to remove your ebook from all other sales channels (Apple, kobo, Google Play, B&N, etc.) and are not even allowed to sell on your own website.

Your current sales (without Amazon Unlimited but regular Amazon listing) might show the majority of sales from Amazon and limited sales from other retailers, however your reader might have discovered your book somewhere else (Apple, kobo, Google, etc) but then decided to check on Amazon and buy it there.

Bottom line

Exclusivity (and any monopoly as Amazon Unlimited tries to create) is NEVER favourable for an author but only good for Amazon.

To reach the highest number of potential readers, it is advisable to get your book listed on as many as possible retailers even though your majority sales occur with Amazon.

Log into your account and make sure to have all retailers selected for worldwide distribution. It is also recommended to offer a printed version for your readers to give potential customers even more choice. We can easily set-up Amazon Print-On-Demand for your ebook. Contact us now to get started.